Passive Imperialism?

-In a presidential campaign season that as of late seems more focused on the relevant question of which candidate will have the prowess to repair America's economic ails and the less relevant questions of personality differences between the likes of Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney and, as of late, the implosion of Herman Cain's campaign (the adultery allegations that have caused Mr. Cain to suspend his run are false, in my mind, because all of the accusers have a record of financial problems and making nonsensical claims (one has been accused of perjury while another was successfully sued for libel); I also share the sentiment of many right-wing pundts and observers that Cain, as a black conservative, was targeted for destruction by the Mainstream Media, which has repeatedly been statistically proven to have an overwhelming left-wing bias, so much so that any claims they continue to make about objectivity are laughable), National Review columnist and author Mark Steyn made the astute observation that foreign policy has played a nonexistent role in the campaign, amongst the Republicans vying for their party's nomination and from the Democrat incumbent Barack Obama. Granted, in our current situation, the politics of the pocketbook and the kitchen table are going to take the forefront with the American people. The problem is that, contrary to the common wisdom, all politics is not local.

-It never has been. And not that we haven't tried. Until the Imperial Japanese Navy launched their attack on Naval Station Pearl Harbor seventy years ago, the United States held a policy of at least nominative isolationism (digging deeper, of course, reveals that some politicians, at times, pursued a more duplicitous course, such as our Lend-Lease acts to the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union that were taking place in the months leading up to our oficial entry into the war). But the fact of the matter is our nation came into being at a time that roughly corresponds to the Beginning of the End of the Frontier: by the time our nation celebrated her one-hundredth birthday, the "corners" of the map had long since been filled; European colonialism was at it's zenith, and the classical powers of Asia were beginning to strike out into this world as well. Indeed, in spite of a civil war that had wracked the nation less than a decade prior, the United States was already considered a regional power. Much as we may have desired not to enter ourselves into the messy affairs of European sabre-rattling, politics hardly stopped at the water's edge for us.

-Which leads us to where we are now. Whether we like it or not, we are very much entangled in world affairs. While it may be a state of general panic on the economic front, what should be more disconcerting is the cultural front; specifically, how it is focused on the Middle East.

-To be a little more acknowledging of recent events, perhaps to say the Middle East is to be too narrowly focused. The trouble spot of the world could be more accurately described as reaching from the western Sahara, across the Levant and the wasteland of the Arabian peninsula, over to the Iranian plateau and to the feet of the Himalayas. It goes without saying, that's a lot of land. It's what-and who-is there that becomes a problem.

-On the Western Front, we have seen a wave of revolution: Libya drove their tyrannical leader, Mummar Ghadaffi, from power and eventually hunted him down and killed him. Egypt and Tunisia deposed their dictators. All of this has become something of a cause celebre in the West. The three men who ruled these lands at the beginning of this year brutally suppressed their populations and were a source of great trouble to us in the West. But, naturally, their removal created a leadership vacuum. Nature, we are told, abhors a vacuum. And the groups that seem poised to fill in the blank are radical Muslims who seek to impose Sharia law, whether directly (say, the Muslim Brotherhood vying for parliamentary majority in Cairo) or indirectly (the TNA in Tripoli).

-To the east, we have the Iranian sphere of influence. Tehran is likely a matter of months, if not weeks, away from completing development on a nuclear weapon-something observers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel have warned repeatedly is the end state of the Islamic Republic's development of a nuclear "energy" program in a nation that sits on top of vast natural petroleum reserves in a world that is skittish about nuclear power. In Afghanistan, attempts to jumpstart the economy and infrastructure struggle mightily outside of Kabul and Kandahar, thanks not only to hostile terrain but a hostile people, who through their ignorance, their fear, and their cultural indifference are proxy agents of a double-crossing Pakistan.

-In the heart of it all is Saudi Arabia. To say the Kingdom is a wasteland is appropriate in more ways than one. In addition to the vast expanse of desert that makes up most of the peninsula, many of the Kingdom's subjects share the same disturbing tendencies of their neighbors: ignorance, fear, and hatred of the outside world, sustained in no small part by adherence to a severe school of Islam that lives the reverse of that old environmentalist slogan: Think locally, act globally. The lifestyle and teachings of radical Islam are, based on objective analysis, horrifically out of place anywhere beyond the bedouin camps of the Empty Quarter. And yet, their adherents are not only in government positions in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Sudan, and Syria, but  they are also heavily populating parts of Europe and southern Asia-thanks in no small part to financing from the extremely duplicitous (and, according to some anonymous observations, profoundly hypocritical) Saudi Royal Family.

-So we've established that we here in the West find the culture of this vast swath of the Earth, to put it mildly, repugnant, whether we acknowledge it openly (like I do) or whether it lurks in our heart of hearts, like it must do for the multiculturalists and apologists for the western self-hatred movement. Who on God's green Earth can honestly approve of people who decapitate foreigners for the crime of being foreign, imprison women for being rape victims on the charge of adultery, burn books, burn buildings, display a disconcerting intolerance for anybody who holds a faith other than Islam (and, in the case of Judaism, reaches fanatic proportions), or, on a more subtle level, believe that shaking hands with foreigners and infidels will cause your penis to shrivel up and disappear (this actually happened, I'm sorry to say) or profess a proud ignorance of Beethoven and Bach?

-Taking this into account, it's not surprising that most Americans, if asked, want nothing to do with this part of the world. Besides, we've got enough problems at home as it is. But here's the rub: A good deal of those problems at home originated over there, thanks to two things: one, That vast stretch of desert that covers north Africa and extends into central Asia has some of the largest proven reserves of natural resources (much has been made about the Arab World and Iran's vast petroleum resources, but this also includes the vast mineral resources recently discovered in Afghanistan, too) in the wrold, which we here in the United States need to keep a good part of our economy going. Secondly, this is the homeland of people who propagate something I mentioned earlier, which is the globalist aspirations of radical Islam, which in turn is one of the roots to the vile cultures that have grown there (to be clear, unlike some observers, I do not believe that the faith itself is the reason, I believe the problems of radical Islam lie at a closer level; and that is the fanatic, cruel, and ultimately idiotic desire of people attached to it to maintain their power and to extend that power over as many people as possible for God knows what reason; in other words, earth-bound human lust for ego satisfaction and control; a sin of corruption that many religions, including my own, have been guilty of). These individuals have demonstrated repeatedly that they have no problem going into the heart of the Great Satan to strike death blows. Half a world and a desire to avoid the unpleasantries there are not enough to keep them at bay.

-So what to do about it? It seems apparent that our attempts to directly intervene have a spotty track record at best. Iraq has wound up working out so far, but what happens after we finish leaving remains to be seen. Americans are growing more pessimistic about Afghanistan, where we continue to try and play nation-builder in addition to fighting off wretched Taliban-affiliated militias who, it seems increasingly certain, are being re-armed by a duplicitous Pakistan that continues to use these otherwise dangerous-but-useless men as proxy units for their own imperialistic maneuvers in Afghanistan (the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, who has maintained his power thanks to American firepower, made a statement not too long ago that, should the United States and Pakistan go to war with each other, he would back Pakistan) and India (Pakistan and India's decades-long pissing contest over Kashmir, a region on the border of the two countries that was once a vital trade route that, economically, has long since been rendered irrelevant thanks to sea and air trade, was the only reason Pakistan has allowed Islamist militias, which would otherwise be considered a threat to their government, to exist).

-I have a suggestion-I call it passive imperialism. I do consider myself an imperialist in the Kipling strain of thought, in the sense that I recognize Western Civilization as being superior to all others. The position shouldn't carry as much shame as the American Left has tried to place on it, history and repeated opportunities to observe it in action demonstrate it. One of the defining arguments in favor of this position is an almost-anecdotal story involving a Governor-General of India during the 19th Century, responding to complaints from Indians regarding interference with a certain cultural practice known as sutee. The man said "You say it is your custom to burn widows. That is fine. We (the British) also have a custom: when a man does such a thing, we tie a rope around his neck and we hang him. So, your men can continue to build your funeral pyres, and my men will build a gallows next to it. You can practice your custom, and then we will practice ours."

-There's a necessary caveat to this: we're not exactly in a position to be so forceful, and we don't have a desire to be so. But we do have a weapon in our favor: economics. We have been involved in the economies of these forsaken countries long enough that a prolonged refusal to conduct trade with them on what they can offer us-oil, for the most part-has the potential to bring these countries crashing down. We wouldn't have too much to lose: the past few years alone have revealed petroleum and natural gas reserves here in the United States and Canada that have yet to be tapped and could provide the region with a period of energy independence long enough for us to develop the technology to wean us off petroleum (and, more importantly, make it cheap enough to be economically viable) altogether. In countries with autocratic power structures, economic stability is often the thing that keeps the leadership in power (note that lack of opportunity was in no small part at least partially responsible for the revolution in Egypt). Governments desperate to regain American dollars to maintain their grips on power will either be forced to accept their impending downfall and isolation or come to the bargaining table begging. There, the United States will be in the position of dominant negotiator: You want our trade, there are numerous human rights and political conditions you have to meet before the dollars come flowing back to the desert.

-In an odd way, I see a parallel between this and the arguments over welfare back home. Welfare creates lazy dependents and a drag on the economy, just as nation-building brings with it a dear price in blood and treasure. But we still have a moral obligation to bring civilization and enlightenment to those parts of the world that have not received it or have been reluctant to embrace it, for the betterment of the world and for our own security, just as we have a moral obligation to help out the needy and destitue. My idea is, in a sense, a form of opting to support geopolitical charity-choice, not force, being the defining features.

-But, again, it is merely an idea. In all likelihood, it probably isn't a very good one. But it's an idea, and it invites discussion on a topic, that for all it's importance to the United States, has been getting the silent treatment as of late.